Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday registered as a possible candidate for the presidential election, seeking to regain the country’s top political position after a helicopter crash killed the nation’s president.
The populist former leader’s registration puts pressure on Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In office, Ahmadinejad openly challenged the 85-year-old cleric, and his attempt to run in 2021 was barred by authorities.
The firebrand politician’s return comes amid heightened tensions between Iran and the West over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program, its arming of Russia in its war on Ukraine and its wide-reaching crackdowns on dissent.
Photo: AFP
Meanwhile, Iran’s support of militia proxy forces throughout the wider Middle East have been in increased focus as Yemen’s Houthi rebels attack ships in the Red Sea over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
Ahmadinejad is the most prominent candidate to register so far.
Speaking after his registration, he vowed to seek “constructive engagement” with the world and improved economic relations with all nations.
“The economic, political, cultural and security problems are beyond the situation in 2013,” Ahmadinejad said, referring to the year he left the presidency after two terms.
After speaking to journalists in front of a bank of about 50 microphones, Ahmadinejad said, his finger in the air: “Long live the spring, long live Iran.”
Before his arrival at the Iranian Ministry of the Interior, his supporters chanted and waved Iranian flags. They quickly surrounded Ahmadinejad, 67, shouting: “God is the greatest.”
An election is planned for June 28 to replace Khamenei’s protege former Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash last month along with seven other people.
Ahmadinejad previously served two four-year terms from 2005 to 2013. Under Iranian law, he became eligible to run again after four years out of office, but he remains a polarizing figure even among fellow hard-liners. His disputed re-election in 2009 sparked massive “Green Movement” protests and a sweeping crackdown in which thousands of people were detained and dozens were killed.
Khamenei in 2017 warned Ahmadinejad that his standing for office again would be a “polarized situation” that would be “harmful for the county.”
Khamenei said nothing during Ahmadinejad’s 2021 attempt, when his candidacy was rejected by the 12-member Guardian Council, a panel of clerics and jurists ultimately overseen by Khamenei. That panel has never accepted a woman or anyone calling for radical change to the country’s governance.
That panel could reject Ahmadinejad again. However, the race to replace Raisi has yet to draw a candidate with clear, overwhelming support from Khamenei.
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